Paul Durousseau

Paul Durousseau (born August 11, 1970) is an American serial killer who murdered seven young women (two of whom were pregnant) in the southeastern United States between 1997 and 2003.

Early life Paul Durousseau was born in Beaumont, Texas, to Joseph Durousseau Sr. and Debra Moten. His father was abusive to Durousseau's mother, which included physical violence during her pregnancies. Shortly after his birth, Durousseau's father deserted the family to evade arrest by police for whipping his wife with a heated coat hanger. Together with his mother and older brother, Durousseau moved in with his maternal aunt in Los Angeles, California. Durousseau was born prematurely and with neonatal jaundice. At the age of eight months, Durousseau sustained a severe head injury from a fall from his stroller, exposing the skull on the back of his head, which required months of stationary treatment. He was diagnosed with severe anemia in 1986 and hypothyroidism in 2000, which are believed to have resulted in intellectual disabilities. According to psychiatrist Dorothy Otnow Lewis, who examined Durousseau in prison, his mother had Turner syndrome, with Lewis believing that Durousseau was also affected by the condition. Shortly after, Durousseau's mother gained custody of her sister's five children, three of whom inherited mental disabilities while the other two had hypothyroidism. According to Durousseau's mother, her son stayed at home to take care of his cousins, preventing one from dying by performing CPR, as well as herself after contracting chickenpox. In 1992, Durousseau had his first child with his girlfriend Lynette, financially supporting her and visiting his daughter on a weekly basis. In November 1992, Durousseau enlisted in the United States Army

Durousseau and his wife moved to Jacksonville, Florida, where they had two daughters in 1996 and 1997. Also in 1997, Durousseau had a fourth daughter through an extramarital affair. the City of Jacksonville was responsible for the background check, and issued Durousseau's taxi driver permit.

Neighbors and friends described Durousseau as a "lewd womanizer" who often asked young women when they planned to "make flicks" with him. A witness recalled him hitting on a girl that appeared to be around 13 or 14 years old.

Murders Durousseau started killing less than one month after the acquittal over the rape charges. His modus operandi would be that he would usually meet his victims (all young single African-American women) through his job and gain their trust to enter their homes, where he would bind them before proceeding to rape them before strangling them to death with a cord.

On September 7, 1997, the nude body of 26-year-old Tracy Habersham was found in Fort Benning. She had been missing for 48 hours and was last seen leaving a party. She had been raped and strangled to death with a cord. Durousseau was not a suspect in the murder, but DNA would later tie him to the crime. He later confessed to Habersham's killing after his arrest.

In 1999, Durousseau raped and killed 24-year-old Tyresa Mack in her apartment. Witnesses saw him leave her place carrying a television. In 2001, he was arrested for raping a young woman in Jacksonville. He spent 30 days in the Montgomery Correctional Center and received two years' probation. On December 19, 2002, 18-year-old Nicole L. Williams' body was found wrapped in a blue blanket at the bottom of a ditch in Jacksonville. She had been reported missing two days earlier. In January 2017, Durousseau's death sentence was overturned by the Florida Supreme Court. The jury that sentenced Durousseau was split 10-2 and the high court declared a split decision unconstitutional in capital sentencing. He was resentenced to life in prison without parole on December 10, 2021, after a jury split 10–2 in favor of another death sentence.

After Durousseau was linked to Mack's murder, investigators looked into other unsolved murder cases in places where Durousseau had previously lived, including the U.S. states of Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma, Alabama, and California, as well as Germany.